Wait.. this is silly.
Quantum sociology is silly.

Nice word soup and pictures but really just background radiation.

"Demand for change" is not a program. Freedoms for all species is silly. I dont want amoebas to be free in drinking water to eat my brain, yet that is what both they and apparently Bill Gates want to do.

Actually, I'm selling their audience short. When real scientists present the real data dispassionately, I think the average person gets quickly confused and tunes out. Those that dumb it down enough to be understood invariably underrepresent or outright misrepresent the problems. With so many unscientific voices out there trying to out shout the real data for their own purposes, real scientists fudging the data is near criminal because it's only more ammunition for deniers.

Yes, if you or I heard them lecture, we would likely hear that and even more, but the average, unscientific American would hear "taking in more energy than is leaving" as a good thing, free energy. If they explained the mechanisms involved, their eyes would glaze over as they just wished someone would tell them it's all lies so they could ignore what they can't understand fully. These people are, imo, the majority in the U.S.. They are why we need emotional delivery of simplified science from a charismatic young woman who knows her stuff.
Edit: For example, I had read the published summaries of the recent U.N. report saying we had 12 years to be carbon neutral to stay below 1.5degree rise, they were far from clear that this was only a 50% chance of achieving that minimal temperature rise, or that we only had 8 years of current emission levels to have a 66% chance, still bad odds. I understood they were also using horrendous models for ice melt and other factors to reach those optimistic numbers, and didn't take feedback loops we already see in action into account, nor did they make allowances for feedbacks we don't know about yet. The average reader only got 12 years to conserve before we are locked into 1.5 degree. They don't even know that's when known feedback loops are expected to outpace human inputs, making it exponentially harder if not impossible to turn around, or that 1.5 degree rise by 2050 likely means closer to 3 degree by 2100, and higher afterwards.

Mating habits for European swallows?! How did we get from the relationship of climatology and sociology to discussing the red light district?

I say it's both.
It's appeal on an emotional and moral level to get people to listen to the facts that she presents more clearly and honestly than the U.N. scientists or that other less political scientific organizations have published.

Not true. Using an emotional delivery to get people interested enough to listen to the factual science is basic psychology, and could be considered the science of selling science to humans....or applied behavioral science.

There's also what's known as psychology of science - The psychology of science is a branch of the studies of science that includes philosophy of science, history of science, and sociology of science or sociology of scientific knowledge. The psychology of science is defined most simply as the scientific study of scientific thought or behavior.

Saying white privilege exists may be stating a sociological fact, but saying someone is incapable of comprehension because of their male white privilege is a racist (and sexist) insulting dismissive statement, particularly when in response to a basic statistical question.

I'm confused on what you mean in your last sentence....do you mean it's hard to see why he got so upset because they disciplined him, or hard to see why he got so upset that he had to be disciplined?

I feel like we’re not getting the whole story here.

Out of context, it’s hard to know why she said anything about white male privilege (and no, that’s not a racist statement, it’s a sociological fact).

It’s equally hard to see why he got so upset he was disciplined.

In this Ghost in the shell movie, cybernetics are just exploding. The guy on the right is pitching his major cybernetics company and he was showing the forign president on the left that their cyberbrain enhancements allowed a 4 year old to learn how to speak french AS she was singing a french lullaby. Normally this would be nothing in the GitS universe, but in the movie this is cutting edge tech. I actually disliked the lit up wire node going to his brain because cyberbrains were never a "visual" thing, but this movie may be before cyberbrains became so advanced. Infact the black president may not even have a cyberbrain, and this is simply an audio/visual transmitter implant.

The only thing I don't like is this is "too" origin. GitS was awesome because it started you in the future utopia, and then used half of its season of episodes to explain indirectly new technologies and how sociologies have changed. Cyberbrains were very commonplace and full cybernetic bodies were available to anyone who had the money, like rich people and the military. Saddly that means alot of things the tv series would have will not be in the movies because the technologies has not come yet.

however as redsky mentioned, they do seem to be latching on to the source material a lot (and aside from the revised thermocamoflauge suit.. oh and Batou's eye implants are just normal eyes and apparently his iconic lenses are just for show) so I am still hopeful. Oh, ok, one other nitpick. Somehow Kusanagi managed to spend like 10 seconds outside the windows shooting in through multiple windows before crashing through. She has no gear or technique to "stop" from her free fall, the only thing she can do is dive through the window.

"sociology: where they're so advanced they've stopped believing in stupid old fashioned concepts like... proof"

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA

*quality

Holy crap. This reaction to *one* article could potentially be hyperbole.

But when that is the entire contents of an essentially random issue after the changeover... Yikes.

But most of all, this is just sad... My parents and grandparents both had Nat Geos dating back a LONG time when I was growing up, and I could pick random ones out of the stacks and read for hours. Incredible photos, and great articles on science, nature, sociology, etc. Essentially criminal to shit all over that tradition like this.

It's extremely important to note that, at the collegiate level, it is taught in introductory sociology courses that feminism is exactly what she says it is. Feminism by its traditional definition is actually a pretty crappy thing, which most people from both sexes would agree on in modern times. While feminists have done wonderful things for women's rights, her message of gender equality is really refreshing.

This is an example of what happens when law enforcement are taught sociology and psychology and de-escalation training. Where as in the US many (especially urban) police departments teach little more than how to use their new military hardware which end of a gun fire's the bullets. To many believe that they are soldiers in a war and criminals or even regular people - especially minorities - are the enemy.

Understand, for people who have faith, faith is knowing the unknowable.

Example: I know that intelligent life exists on other planets. It is a 100% certainty in my mind. I am so certain of this "fact" in fact, that I think it's ridiculous that there are people who even question it. Yet, there is no actual scientific proof. Nothing published. Nothing discovered. I believe it though. I know it to be true. If someone were to tell me I shouldn't believe or talk about it, I would find it nonsensical and offensive. This is what faith feels like.

There's a difference between passively not believing in God and actively hating people who do.

If someone offers some bullshit as fact, and you know it isn't, welcome to every day on earth (or at least the internet). It doesn't matter if it's religion or not.

For example: (paraphrasing) 'Most people proselytize'.

Most of the (almost 6 Billion) people who believe in God go through their day to day lives without ever even mentioning their beliefs let alone trying to proselytize when they do.

And on that note I will say that proselytizing is not necessarily wrong either. You believe what you believe and they believe what they believe and everyone gets to express themselves (all proselytizing) and everyone can make up their own minds. Now, I'm talking about people expressing themselves, not entities who have an agenda.

Which brings me to my last point. None of this is to suggest that I disagree with Bil Nye. Kids should not be fed bullshit. Adults either. The real problem? It's not "money is the root of all evil". It's "the love of money". Greed is behind the majority of evil.

There are those who desire positions of power and pervert religion into a tool to achieve their own agenda. This is a very old story. And it is these people who "take God's name in vain". But that's just one hammer in their toolbag. Religion is one. Anti-intellectualism another. Manipulation through fear. On and on.

Science is truth but it is not the only "truth" in life. Art exists. Beauty exists. Love exists. There is more. Maybe all of that can be boiled down to some chemical reactions in the brain and sociological pressures, but I believe there is a greater truth.

Sorry for ranting. Don't take any of this personally please!

Your video, Son Asks Dad Insane Sociology Questions And He Goes Berserk, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This was absolutely incredible! Many late bloomers have an incredibly important 'coming out of their shell' experience, and it's often when they role play as a person with higher confidence. It's a transforming experience that imbues high self-confidence and esteem onto the individual, when these were typically dwindling traits beforehand. I've known several (self included) who experienced this by either internet games or old fashioned role playing games. It's very interesting that she found this role play experience by creating an alter ego as a porn star. She even found solace for her previous sexual baggage. I learned a hell of a lot from this, and won't be viewing the porn industry the same way again. Despite many of the evils in the industry that she hinted at in this series, this is an incredibly great thing that she pulled from it, and is obviously even more valuable than the ostracizing she's experiencing because of it.

I also hope that she knows a bachelor's in sociology qualifies her for no skilled labor jobs. She better either go to grad school, or get some real skills...otherwise, porn really is her career, and it only lasts as long as her looks. It's good that she's not going into debt for that degree.

" At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes."

Per year. You don't cite your source, but this is looks to me to be an underestimate. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics' National Crime Victimization Survey there are half about half a million people claiming to be victim of a gun related crime over the course of a year. I remember being a victim of a gun crime in America (the perp was an British-born and educated woman) where the police said that they weren't going to follow things up because they were too busy with more serious crimes and they weren't confident of successful prosecution, they didn't even bother to look at the bullets or interview the perpetrator. I'd be surprised if it was even officially reported for crime statistic purposes.

"So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least."

You didn't discuss the confounding variables.

But nevertheless, nobody is saying that owning guns makes you intrinsically more criminal. The argument here seems to be that criminals or those with criminal intent will find it much easier to acquire firearms when there are hundreds of millions of them distributed in various degrees of security across the US.

And those that have firearms, who are basically normal and moral people, may find themselves in a situation where their firearm is used, even in error, and causes harm - a situation obviously avoided in the absence of firearms and something that isn't necessarily included in crime statistics.

"In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home"

Yes, but here's a fun fact. I've been burgled a few times, all but one of those times I was at home when it happened. You know what the burglar was armed with? Nothing. Do you know what happened when I confronted him with a wooden weapon? He pretended he knew someone that lived there and when that fell through he ran away. When the police apprehended him, there wasn't any consideration that he might be armed with a gun and the police merely put handcuffs on him and he walked to the police car. He swore and made some idle and non-specific threats, according to the police, but that's it. In any event, this isn't extraordinary. There are still too many burglaries that do involve violence, of course.
Many burglaries in Britain are actually vehicle crimes, with opportunity thrown in. That is: The primary purpose of the burglary is to acquire car keys (this is often the easiest way to steal modern vehicles), but they may grab whatever else is valuable and easy too.

"The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings."

What impact did it have on gun prevalence? Not really enough to stop the sentence 'guns are prevalent in the US' from being true....

" So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed."

I missed the part where you provided the reasoning that connects your evidence to this conclusion.

"Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. "

This is silly. Guns don't get manufactured and then 32% of them get stolen from the manufacturers warehouse. They get bought and some get subsequently stolen. If there were less guns made and sold there would be less guns available for felons to acquire them privately, less places to steal them or buy stolen ones on the black market, less opportunity for renting or purchasing from a retailer. Thus - less felons with guns.

If times got tough, and I thought robbing a convenience store was a way out of a situation I was in - I would not be able to acquire a firearm without putting myself in considerable danger that outweighs the benefits to the degree that pretending to have a gun is a better strategy. I have 'black market contacts' so I might be able to work my way to someone with a gun, but I really don't want to get into business with someone that deals guns because they are near universally bad news.

" states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate."

Almost all States have such laws, making the comparison pretty meaningless.

"In fact, it's {number of mass shootings} declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. "

I think 'most dead in one incident' is a poor measure. I think total dead over a reasonable time period is probably better.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rampage_killers:_School_massacres
The UK appears once. It is approx. 1/5 the population of the US. The US manages to have five incidents in the top 10.

Statistics can be fun, though, huh?

" In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens"

You've done a lot of hard work to show that most gun owners are law-abiding and non-violent. As such, the police won't go door to door, citizens will go to the police.

"How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns?"

The same way they remove contraband from other recalcitrants. I expect most of them will ask, demand, threaten and then use force - but as usual there will be examples where it won't be pretty.

"Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns?"

That's how it typically goes down here in the UK, yes.

"Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else?"

The military has had access to weapons the citizenry is not permitted to for some considerable time. Banning most handguns etc., would just be adding to the list.

"Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?"

No, but on the other hand, can the same unreliable, dishonest, immoral and unvirtuous government ensure that allowing general access to firearms will go exactly as planned?

You see, you talk the talk of sociological examination, but you seem to have neglected any form of critical reflection.

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary

"From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary"

On the other hand, I've been mugged erm, 6 times? I've been violently assaulted without attempts to rob another half dozen or so. I don't tend to hang around in the sorts of places middle class WASPs would loiter, shall we say. I'm glad most of the people that cross my path are not armed, and have little to no idea how to get a gun.

You don't source this assertion as far as I saw - but you'll have to do better than 'it's interesting' in your analysis, I'm afraid.

No formatting, because too much typing already.

You seem to think that eliminating guns will somehow eliminate mass shootings. However, there is zero correlation to the number of legal gun ownerships with the number of homicides. In fact, here are some statistics for you:

At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes. And, as it happens, where gun ownership per capita increases, violent crime is known to decrease. In other words, Caucasians tend to own more guns than African Americans, middle aged folks own more guns than young people, wealthy people own more guns than poor people, rural families own more guns than urbanites --> But the exact opposite is true for violent behavior (i.e., African Americans tend to be more violent than Caucasians, young people more violent than middle aged people, poor people more violent than wealthy people, and urbanites more violent than rural people). So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least. This is, in large part, due to the cultural divide in the U.S. around gun ownership whereby most gun owners own guns for recreational sports (including the Southern Caucasian rural hunting culture, the likes of which aren't found in Australia or the UK or Europe, etc.); and about half of gun owners own guns for self-defense (usually as the result of living in a dangerous environment). Most of the widespread gun ownership in the U.S. predates any gun control legislation and gun ownership tends to generally rise as a response to an increase in violent crime (not the other way around).

There were about 350,000 crimes in 2009 in which a gun was present (but may not have been used), 24% of robberies, 5% of assaults, and about 66% of homicides. By contrast, guns are used as self-defense as many as 2 and a half million times every year (according to criminologist Gary Kleck at Florida State University), thereby decreasing the potential loss of life or property (i.e., those with guns are less likely to be injured in a violent crime than those who use another defensive strategy or simply comply).

Interestingly, violent crimes tend to decrease in those areas where there have been highly publicized instances of victims arming themselves or defending themselves against violent criminals. (In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home, whereas only 9% of home burglaries in the U.S. occur when people are in the home, presumably as a result of criminals' fear of being shot by the homeowner.) In short, gun ownership reduces the likelihood of harm.

So, for example, Boston has the strictest gun control and the most school shootings. The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings. The worst mass homicide in a school in the U.S. took place in Michigan in 1927, killing 38 children. The perpetrator used (illegal) bombs, not guns in this case.

1/3 of legal gun owners obtain their guns (a total of about 200,000 guns) privately, outside the reach of government regulation. So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed.

Out of a sample of 943 felon handgun owners, 44% had obtained the gun privately, 32% stole it, 9% rented/borrowed it, and 16% bought it from a retailer. (Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. Stricter legislation would likely therefore change the statistics of how felon handgun owners obtain the gun towards less legal, more violent ways.) Less than 3% obtain guns on the 'black market' (probably due, in part, to how many legal guns are already easily obtained).

600,000 guns are stolen every year and millions of guns circulate among criminals (outside the reach of the regulators), so the elimination of all new handgun purchases/sales, the guns would still be in the hands of the criminals (and few others).

The common gun controls have been shown to have no effect on the reduction of violent crime, however, according to the Dept. of Justice, states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate. A 2003 CDC report found no conclusive evidence that gun control laws reduced gun violence. This conclusion was echoed in an exhaustive National Academy of Sciences study a year later.

General gun ownership has no net positive effect on total violence rates.

Of almost 200,000 CCP holders in Florida, only 8 were revoked as a result of a crime.

The high-water mark of mass killings in the U.S. was back in 1929, and has not increased since then. In fact, it's declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. The murder rate and violent crime in the U.S. is less than half of what it was in the late 1980s (the reason for which is most certainly multimodal and multifaceted).

Regarding Gun-Free Zones, many mass shooters select their venues because there are signs there explicitly banning concealed handguns (i.e., where the likelihood is higher that interference will be minimal). "With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns," says John Lott.

In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens, when a study has shown that private owners are convicted of firearms violations at the same rate as police officers? How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns? Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns? Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else? Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?

From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary. Do they really want to deprive those who are culturally acclimatized to gun-ownership, who may be less fortunate than they are, to have the means to protect themselves (e.g., women who carry guns to protect themselves from assault or rape)? Sounds more like a lack of empathy and understanding of those realities to me.

There are many generational issues worth mentioning here. For example, the rise in gun ownership coincided with the war on drugs and the war on poverty. There are also nearly 24 million combat veterans living in the U.S. and they constitute a significant proportion of the U.S.' prison population as a result of sex offenses or violent crime. Male combat veterans are four times as likely to engage violent crime as non-veteran men; and are 4.4 times more likely to have abused a spouse/partner, and 6.4 times more likely to suffer from PTSD, and 2-3 times more likely to suffer from depression, substance abuse, unemployment, divorce/separation. Vietnam veterans with PTSD tend to have higher rates of childhood abuse (26%) than Vietnam veterans without PTSD (7%). Iraq/Afghanistan vets are 75% more likely to die in car crashes. Sex crimes by active duty soldiers have tripled since 2003. In 2007, 700,000 U.S. children had at least one parent in a warzone. In a July 2010 report, child abuse in Army families was 3 times higher if a parent was deployed in combat. From 2001 - 2011, alcohol use associated with domestic violence in Army families increased by 54%, and child abuse increased by 40%. What effect do you think that's going to have, regardless of "gun controls?"
("The War Comes Home" or as William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies said, "A spear is a stick sharpened at both ends.")

In addition, families in the U.S. continue to break down. Single parent households have a high correlation to violence among children. In 1965, 93% of all American births were to married women. Today, 41% of all births are to unmarried women (a rate that rises to 53% for women under the age of 30). By age 30, 1/3 of American women have spent time as a single mother (a rate that is halved in European countries like France, Sweden, & Germany). Less than 9% of married couples are in poverty, but more than 40% of single-parent families are in poverty. Much of child poverty would be ameliorated if parents were marrying at 1970s rates. 85% of incarcerated youth grew up without fathers.

Since the implementation of the war on drugs, there's a drug arrest in the U.S. every 19 seconds, 82% of which were for possession alone (destroying homes and families in the process). The Dept. of Justice says that illegal drug market in the U.S. is dominated by 900,000 criminally active gang members affiliated with 20,000 street gangs in more than 2,500 cities, many of which have direct ties to Mexican drug cartels in at least 230 American cities. The drug control spending, however, has grown by 69.7% over the past 9 years. The criminal justice system is so overburdened as a result that nearly four out of every ten murders, and six out of every ten rapes, and nine out of ten burglaries go unsolved (and 90% of the "solved" cases are the result of plea-bargains, resulting in non-definitive guilt). Only 8.5% of federal prisoners have committed violent offenses. 75% of Detroit's state budget can be traced back to the war on drugs.

Point being, a government program is unlikely to solve any issues with regards to guns and the whole notion of gun control legislation is severely misguided in light of all that I've pointed out above. In fact, a lot of the violence is the direct or indirect result of government programs (war on drugs and the war on poverty).

(And, you'll note, I made no mention of the recent spike in the polypharmacy medicating of a significant proportion of American children -- including most of the "school shooters" -- the combinations of which have not been studied, but have -- at least in part -- been correlated to homicidal and/or suicidal behaviors.)